on the intermediate shelf. Previous work has shown that this expansion wave solution is in excellent agreement with full
numerical solutions of the nematic equations (REF ) and () [1]}, [2]}, so it will not
be compared with numerical solutions in this work. To determine the height \(u_{i} = \sqrt{\rho _{i}}\)  of the intermediate
shelf and the velocity \(s_{i}\)  of its leading edge, the DSW needs to be determined. The dam break problem corresponds to
\(\rho _{i}=0\) , in which case \(v_{i} = 2u_{-} \sqrt{2/q}\)  [1]}.
